Finding Positivity In All of This is NOT Selfish
It is one of the best ways to handle the insanity of the world.
Given the current state of the world and the craziness therein, the topic of positivity looks incredibly disingenuous.
People are suffering needlessly. Protections for the environment and other safeties are being removed for no good reason. Those who are supposed to protect us are increasingly joining or siding with those intent on harming us. None of it makes sense. It’s scary, uncertain, frustrating, frightening, and totally fucked up.
I am in no way, shape, or form dismissing or discounting this. The current state of the world is pretty fucked up. So how can I possibly explore positivity in the midst of all the negativity, ongoing awfulness, and uncertainty?
Because consciousness creates reality. If all we do is focus on the bad stuff, the awful things, the fear and uncertainty, we grow it bigger. It becomes overwhelming to the point where it impacts your mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical health.
Positivity is often treated as a big, overarching, exclusive narrative. That’s where toxic positivity comes in. Genuine, non-toxic positivity is not huge, it’s frankly very tiny and easily overlooked. More than that, it’s in no way, shape, or form selfish.
What counts as genuine positivity?
There are many little things in life that are aspects of positivity. Yet in the grand scheme of things, in our interconnected yet disconnected world, they’re easy to ignore.
Positivity also is the extreme opposite negativity. Most things in life fall somewhere on the flexible cylinder between these extremes. You exist mostly somewhere on that cylinder between them and get to choose which way to face. And it’s a flexible cylinder because today’s positive is tomorrow’s negative and vice versa.
What counts as genuine positivity, then? Here’s a partial list from my life.
- There is air in my lungs
- I have the means to write these words
- I’m alive
- My cats want my attention
- I have coffee
- I’m wearing a warm hoodie
- The sun is shining
- The sky is clear
- I have love and am loved
When you look at these things they’re innocuous. Yet they are matters of genuine positivity I can grasp and take comfort in. Especially in the face of all the things I can’t do jack shit about.
When you recognize and acknowledge the small matters of genuine positivity around you, you become empowered. When you’re empowered you can make more choices and decisions to live as best you can.
But doesn’t that lead to selfishness?
Finding positivity in all of this is not selfish
Consciousness creates reality. If you focus on all the shit happening; if you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the constant stream of terrible, harmful, hateful, fear-inducing news and information – you are disempowered.
Hence why finding, recognizing, and acknowledging the little matters of positivity, becoming empowered, and seeking/finding and/or creating positivity is not selfish.
Being selfish is a very specific matter. Genuine selfishness means intentionally taking action and knowing it causes hurt and harm to others. The people removing environmental protections to make more money are fucking selfish. Those who remove equality for others are doing something selfish for themselves in the name of false lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. Willfully taking more than your fair share of anything – intending to leave less or nothing for others (tangible or intangible) – is selfish.
Self-care and doing things to help your own mental, emotional, spiritual, and/or physical health is NOT in any way, shape, or form, selfish. Period. That’s because you are the only you that there is, and you are worthy and deserving of good health, wellness, wellbeing, and empowerment.
Finding positivity to keep yourself from falling into depression or giving in to the madness is NOT SELFISH. Seeking people and things to be for rather than against is a matter of positivity that’s not selfish.
Yet there’s one other uncomfortable truth in all of this.
People always have and always will suffer
Human beings are complicated. We’re capable of creating incredible, amazing things and doing vast, horrific destruction in equal measure. Sometimes people do things and accept narratives counter to their greater good due to fear, disempowerment, false beliefs, skewed values, and other malicious and non-malicious matters.
Suffering can be tangible and intangible. And it’s utterly unavoidable. People always have and always will suffer emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and/or physically. However, almost nobody is always suffering all the time.
It’s also often a choice. People can’t see new ways, alternatives, and/or allow fear to keep them in uncomfortable, familiar comfort zones. Worse than that, certain so-called leaders will exploit the hell out of that to embolden themselves selfishly.
Do you want to choose suffering? I don’t. And I don’t know anyone who truly does. That’s why finding positivity in all of this is not selfish. It’s a matter of empowerment and making choices and decisions for your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing. When you’re empowered you can change your life’s narrative. That can inspire and empower others to do so for themselves, too.
Understanding that finding positivity in all of this is not selfish isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you have the power to choose and decide to focus on the negative or the positive, and that you’re only selfish if you do intentional harm, you can seek the little, non-toxic positive things to give attention to. Knowing that this is not selfish, you can use this to improve your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing to better handle the craziness of the world.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, that can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred-and-seventy-sixth (576) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
Please visit here to explore all my published fiction and non-fiction.
Follow me here!
